A combination of deadly attacks by non-state armed groups in the Far North region and growing violence in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions continue to trigger massive but underreported displacement in Cameroon.

Most displacement associated with conflict in Cameroon has historically occurred in the Far North, the poorest region of the country and the one that suffers the most from the Boko Haram insurgency. In 2020, however, seven in ten internally displaced people (IDPs) in Cameroon were forced to flee because of violence in the English-speaking regions.

“Since 2017, UN agencies have been warning of a tragedy in the making in Northwest and Southwest regions,” says IDMC director Alexandra Bilak. “Reports of thousands of new displacements since the beginning of the year and school attacks that have left children dead show that this is now a reality.”

Non-state armed groups fighting to secede from the rest of the country have been targeting schools and teachers they say are sponsored by the central government in French-speaking Yaoundé. Entire families are being forced to flee repeatedly to avoid kidnappings and harassment.

“Many IDPs look for a safe haven in Cameroon’s largest cities. But there they face a new set of challenges in accessing services and employment and often end up displaced again as a result of disasters,” explains Alexandra Bilak. In August 2020, the worst coastal flooding in decades rendered nearly 5,000 people homeless in Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital. Last year, floods also swept through the semi-arid Far North region, where they forced people already displaced from conflict areas to move again.

The total number of new displacements in Cameroon nearly doubled in 2020, compared to 2019. Over one million people are now internally displaced. The country also hosts around 435,000 refugees from Nigeria and the Central African Republic. If displacement continues at this rate and goes unreported, humanitarians will not be able to evaluate people’s needs and deliver effective assistance. “Without evidence, you cannot prevent, respond, or find lasting solutions to this neglected crisis”, warns Alexandra Bilak.

Source: Internal displacement

Two Cameroonian soldiers deployed to Nigeria were killed late yesterday in a Boko Haram attack in northeastern Borno state, two Nigerian military sources said today.

The insurgents, on foot and in several trucks fitted with machine guns, attacked Nigerian soldiers outside the town of Wulgo as well as Cameroonian soldiers deployed from across the border to assist.

“Two CDF (Cameroonian Defence Force) soldiers were killed in the 40-minute gunfight with the Boko Haram terrorists,” a Nigerian military source said.

“Another three CDF soldiers and a Nigerian soldier were injured in the fight,” said the military officer, in an account confirmed by a second Nigerian military source.

An armoured vehicle belonging to the Nigerian army and two Boko Haram trucks were destroyed in the fight while “several” jihadists were “neutralised”, the second military officer said.

The jihadists launched the attack from the nearby Wulgo forest, a known Boko Haram hideout.

Boko Haram and its splinter group ISWAP, the Islamic State West Africa Province, have killed 36,000 people in northeast Nigeria and displaced around two million from their homes since 2009, according to the United Nations.

Earlier this month, ISWAP claimed in a statement that it used two vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, killing and wounding 30 soldiers near Wulgo, a claim that AFP could not independently verify.

Nigeria’s jihadist violence has spread to neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger, prompting a regional military coalition to fight the insurgents.

Source: AFP

The former managing director of the Cameroon Radio and Television Corporation (CRTV), Professor Gervais Mendo Ze, has thanked the head of state, Paul Biya, for helping him lose the excess weight that had become a millstone around his neck.

In a video statement issued on Monday, the ailing professor could been seen demonstrating how grateful he is to the man he served for decades though he was thrown in jail for many years.

A professor of linguistics, Mendo Ze knows how to be sarcastic and understands that sometimes non-verbal communication could be more effective than verbal communication.

The learned Professor wants the world to see how he has been reduced to a bag of bones and helpless. That is why he has released a short video which shows how helpless he has become because of a system that has no regard for human life.

In the video, Mendo Ze is being spoon-fed by a good Samaritan, an image which underscores that a picture is worth more than a thousand words.

But Mendo Ze is not alone in this mess he helped to create. Many others are suffering like him and it is clear that they might never be free.

Inoni Ephraim, a former prime minister, was also reduced to a bag of bones because he was suspected of engaging in corrupt practices while he was the Deputy Secretary General at the Presidency of the Republic.

He is today receiving medical attention in France and he has been warned not to open his large mouth else he will be brought back to the Yaounde maximum security facility.

Others like Abah Abah, a former minister of finance; Marafa Amidou Yaya, a former minister of territorial administration and master election rigger; Mebe Ngoh, a former minister of defense and presumed heir to the throne; and Amadou Vamoulke, a former CRTV managing director, are all slowly dying in the Yaounde Maximum Security Facility.

But Cameroonians are not worried about this bunch of hungry individuals who helped to prop a very bad system that is today consuming them and their families.

Under the guise of fighting corruption, the country’s president and those who surround him are doing their best to settle scores and to intimidate those who might one day think of exposing the system or even dreaming of taking over from the ailing president who has ruled the country for 38 years with no good results to show for his long stay in power.

Mendo Ze’s fate is simply a reminder to those who think of becoming senior officials in a system that functions like the Sicilian Mafia.

The only effective rules in the system are those which are unwritten and those rules are dictated by the ailing president.

Cameroon is a dangerous place; a rich country that has been reduced to a bastion of poverty by a president who only thinks of himself.

By the time Biya dies, his government will be considered the worst in the world and the damage Pinochet wreak on his people will be reduced to a dress rehearsal because Biya would have outperformed Pinochet.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima says the Biya French Cameroun war against the people of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, which French President Emmanuel Macron embraced and is providing financial support and military hardware under his decentralization flagship policy has failed to bring the Ambazonia resistance to its knees.

VP Yerima made the remarks during a recent press briefing in the United Republic of Tanzania in which the exiled Ambazonian leader expressed his country’s condolences to Tanzania over the death of President Magufuli.

“For over four years now, we have shown the world our ability to resist French backed French Cameroun genocidal campaign that simply targets innocent Southern Cameroons civilians in order to bring us to our knees” Yerima observed.

He was referring to the current Southern Cameroons crisis which started in 2016, that was a strike by teachers and lawyers, in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon. The professionals, supported by British Southern Cameroons citizens of their areas, protested the unfair use of the French language and unjustified appointments of French speakers in their territories. Cameroon has been passing for a bilingual country.

By 2017, the situation had spiralled out of control and developed into a fully-fledged separatist war. Both government forces and separatists are now bogged down in a conflict that observers say, can only be resolved through dialogue.

Elsewhere in his press conference, Vice President Dabney Yerima stated that in the face of all French Cameroun military onslaught “Southern Cameroonians on Ground 1, Ground Zero, and those in the West are not just surviving, but we are stronger and more determined, more than ever, to decide our own destiny.”

By Isong Asu in London

Prof Carlson Anyangwe a leading British Southern Cameroons political figure has warned the Biya French Cameroun regime not to play with fire at a petrol station, saying La Republique du Cameroun’s continued aggression against the people of Ambazonia will be met by a strong response from Ambazonia Restoration Forces.

Prof Anyangwe made the comments in a special plea to the Southern Cameroons diaspora on Saturday. The much respected academic called on Amba exiles to support the Interim Government under Vice President Dabney Yerima and all its self defense projects.

Carlson Anyangwe insisted that the people of British Southern Cameroons have never sought a military confrontation with La Republique du Cameroun but will be displaying a resistance much stronger in the days ahead.

“Because of support from Paris, the Biya French Cameroun regime does not commit to anything in international law! It has destroyed town and villages and killed innocent Southern Cameroons civilians in all its vicious attacks,” the prominent Southern Cameroons academic said.

Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia and its Interim Government will never forget the blood of its martyrs, Anyangwe added. “Soon and very soon, if they attack our towns we will attack theirs; if they attack our villages, we will target their villages.”

By Asu Vera Eyere

After five years, the international community has been “too silent” about Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis, according to a leading Catholic charity.

Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions have been ravaged by violence since the violent suppression of a series of demonstrations against the imposition of French – the majority language in Cameroon – the Anglophone regions’ common law and British-based education system.

At least 3,500 people have been killed in the conflict, and at least 700,000 more displaced. In addition, rebels have shut down the education system in the two regions, burning schools and kidnapping students and staff.

Both the insurgents and government troops have been accused of grave human rights abuses, with the civilian population caught in the middle.

“So far, the international community remains too silent considering the gravity of the crisis,” said a representative of Franciscans International, who wished to remain unnamed for security reasons.

“For political, historical and economic reasons, States remain reluctant to take the lead on an international condemnation of the ongoing violence occurring in Cameroon,” the official told Crux.

Since the crisis begun, a few countries, including the United States, have recognized and condemned atrocities committed in Cameroon, but the Franciscan International official said international actors “remain too shy as the issue has not been deeply discussed at the UN Human Rights Council.”

“Cameroon’s diplomatic force knows how to use its political links to slip below the radar of certain international institutions, which is the case with the UN Security Council. Despite pressure from civil society organizations and a few states, the issue was never discussed by members of the Council,” he told Crux.

“The [UN Security Council], beyond putting the problem on its agenda, should take concrete measures to condemn crimes and sexual violence perpetrated during a conflict. The lack of international attention to the Anglophone crisis is one of the factors which perpetuate the ‘feeling of international impunity’ on the part of the Cameroonian authorities. A stronger media exposure would increase international pressure on the country to change the situation quickly,” he said.

Recently, Human Rights Watch reported that at least 20 women were raped in the village of Ebam in the country’s South West region on March 1, 2020.

The report said the women were raped by government soldiers in an operation in which one man was killed and 35 others arrested.

“One year on, survivors of the Ebam attack are desperate for justice and reparations, and they live with the disturbing knowledge that those who abused them are walking free and have faced no consequences.” said Ida Sawyer, deputy Africa director for Human Rights Watch.

The Franciscans International official told Crux that the HRW report “sadly illustrates the gravity of the so-called Anglophone crisis in Cameroon, and I will analyze it through a human rights lens.”

“The report perfectly shows how the Cameroonian government commits a set of gross human rights violations by act and omission,” he said.

“In Ebam, the national state army was responsible for murders, physical attacks and sexual assaults against women. This constitutes direct violations of several human rights provisions included in the Cameroonian national constitution preamble such as the right to life, to physical and moral integrity; the inviolability of the home and the protection of minorities, here the Anglophone minority,” he added.

Noting that Cameroon was signatory to various international instruments that guarantee human rights, he said the country’s government was failing to live up to these expectations.

“The state can be held responsible for omissions by the lack of access to physical and psychological health for victims of sexual assault, as well as through the absence of proper investigation, prosecution, reparation and compensation for victims condemning the crimes, even though we may consider the lack of governmental action as a deliberated act from the government,” he said.

“Access to justice and effective remedies, as fundamental procedural rights, constitute a safeguard allowing reparation when the State fails to fulfill its material human rights obligations. The lack of prosecution of the authors of the crimes illustrated by HRW thus shows the gravity and depth of the human rights crisis,” the Franciscans International official said.

He said the Ebam attack once more highlighted the “gross violation of women’s rights” taking place during the Anglophone crisis.

“Women and girls are directly targeted through arsons, property destructions, and rapes. These attacks against women constitute a violation of several international human rights law instruments including the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), ratified by Cameroon,” the official added.

“This repeated sexual violence against women intends – according to the military’s logic – to weaken a so-called opposing party and to affect the whole communities. But of course, the first victims are civilian women and girls, who do not have any link with the separatist forces and are deeply wounded physically and mentally,” he said.

The Vatican’s top diplomat, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, visited Cameroon, including the Anglophone North West Region, at the end of January to call for peace and reconciliation in the country.

Culled from Crux